


lay down your weary tune

by DuendeJunior



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Kurapika finally answers his phone, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 14:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3654537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuendeJunior/pseuds/DuendeJunior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Back then, the only thing I wanted was to find a doctor.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	lay down your weary tune

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about this one ever since I first read chapter 339, and later those special "Kurapika's Reminiscences" chapters, which were made for one of the movies. It took months to turn thought into action and actually write the thing, as always, and in the meantime Togashi came like a wrecking ball and relased nine more chapters before going back to Hiatus Land. So the action kind of takes place in the time between c. 339 and c. 343.
> 
> Also, just a heads-up: there's a small mention of anxiety-induced nausea in this text. Nothing too graphic, but might cause some uneasiness.
> 
> Title taken from Bob Dylan's "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" (I swear I'm gonna be less obvious the next time).
> 
> Unrevised work.

“Back then, the only thing I wanted was to find a doctor.”

Kurapika’s voice fills the silence of the call, and he only realizes what he has said when he hears a confused “what?” coming from Leorio on the other side. He bites his own tongue, hard; at that point, he should have learned to restrain himself from revealing too much.

“Oi, Kurapika! Still there?”

“Yes, yes, sorry.”

“Phew. So… You wanted to find a doctor for someone, you say?”

He feels lightheaded, not sure whether he wants Leorio to press the matter or not. He knows he can’t go back and say it was a non-sequitur; Leorio won’t buy that for a second. They’ve known each other for quite a long time now for that to work, even through the phone.

Kurapika closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Yes. When my clan was slayed by Genei Ryodan, I…” He gulped. “I wasn’t on the village. That’s why I escaped their fate, because I wasn’t there.”

He can hear the faint sound of Leorio’s steps on the background, and starts counting them. Sometimes he counts the time in heartbeats, sometimes in steps. Clocks still feel too artificial to him.

Leorio answers him thirty-seven steps later.

“Let me see if I got this right. You got out of your home to find a doctor. I assume you mean someone with a medical degree, right?”

“Yes.”

“Were you the one who needed it?”

Kurapika knows Leorio has his lips pursed right now, his eyebrows drawn together by a frown. He can sense the worry as if they were side by side again.

He draws another deep breath. He hopes the truth will diffuse Leorio’s preoccupation; he doesn’t know if he can say it even after all this time.

“No. It was for my best friend. He had a condition that weakened his eyes, and our doctors had used every scrap of their knowledge to find a cure, but nothing happened. The original plan was to get a Hunter Card and use it to…”

The familiar sensation of nausea overcomes Kurapika before he can finish the sentence. He makes a pained noise, which probably doesn’t do anything to convince Leorio he shouldn’t worry. He covers his mouth and tries to control it, before vomit covers the jars with the eyes he won back at the York Shin auctions.

Leorio says “breath in, breath out, breath in” at regular intervals on the other side of the phone, and Kurapika follows the rhythm until his nausea is subdued. He murmurs a quiet “thank you”, but doesn’t finish his previous sentence; he trusts Leorio caught the idea. After all, it wasn’t too dissimilar to his friend’s own childhood plan.

“I see”, Leorio says. His voice is small and quiet. Kurapika can hear him breathing through the phone – like with many things concerning the man, it should be weird but comes off as reassuring instead.

One, two, ten, twelve steps later, Leorio speaks again. Kurapika is grateful for not having to break the almost silence first.

“I’m sorry”, he says. Kurapika imagines his face all scrunched up, like he always did when he was about to cry. He can’t imagine what he might be sorry for.

“About what”, Kurapika asks.

“I should have found you sooner. I should have done something to get into medical school sooner and then met you and your friend.”

Kurapika can’t help the incredulous chuckle that escapes his mouth.

“How would you even find me?”

“That’s just a detail. We found each other at the Hunter Exam, didn’t we? Maybe there was somewhere else we could have met before that.”

No other sound escape his lips, but Kurapika’s shoulders still move with laughter.

Someone in the Mafia had once asked him if there was anything he found particularly dangerous, and he hadn’t given a direct answer. He had just said “ _this world has more danger than you realize at first_ ” and expected to think about the Genei Ryodan, or the moments where Killua’s assassin training had been needed, but instead Leorio and Gon came to his mind.

Now he remembers why – those two have a particular way to say “ _it could have been like this, this and this. It will be like this, this and this next time_ ” and make him believe. Making any normal person fully believe in what you say is no small feat, so what else could he call the people who make the last Kuruta alive believe other than _dangerous_?

“Somehow I don’t doubt it.”

“I’m being serious here. So much could have been avoided.”

“Well”, Kurapika says. Like everything he wants – needs – to say, it doesn’t come easy even via phone. But when has he ever waited for anything to come easy? “Much can still be avoided. After all, we’re still here, mostly alive, aren’t we?”

He can feel Leorio smiling back at him on the other side of the line. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Eight times, before Leorio answers.

“Yeah, we are. Even though you have this tendency of disappearing in a matter of seconds and ‘forgetting’ to answer my calls for months at a time.”

Leorio trails off, grumbling something about Kurapika and Gon running a bet to see which one could make him swallow more cellphones out of frustration. Kurapika’s heart beats a tad too loud in his chest, but not from guilt or rage this time. He can’t find it in himself to stop smiling.

Who would have predicted it was the doctor who would find him one day.


End file.
